Chapter Text
A thin needle dug its way deep inside Elliot's vein.
One minute he was crying out at the sharp pain concentrated in his arm, and now he was struggling to keep his eyes open in a hazy grey world. He didn't realize he was in a delusional state in-between his dreams and reality, where the things that haunted him could be realized.
Such as Two Time's expression of immortalized anguish, which gave him a jumpscare in all of its gory glory.
Elliot choked out a gasp and pulled back, watching as their face dissipated into a white light. His subconsciousness tried to tip him off that he was on the verge of waking up, but even as his eyes took in the actual room he was in, his blurry vision failed to clear up.
And then hands fell on him, gripping his shoulders tightly and holding him still.
“N- NO!-” Elliot's coarse voice died on the word, limiting his communication to pained whimpers.
He grew more erratic, tossing and turning, attempting to free himself when all he managed was more resistance against him. The boy was pushed into the bed, his jagged movements causing his hair to come undone underneath him.
What was happening? His body was in pain, his arm burned with a venom that traveled through his bloodstream, and his head was going to burst. He felt all of his thoughts rush him at once. All his anxieties, duties, wishes. . .
He had to protect Mia.
He couldn't leave Chance. . .
He needed to save them.
“H-help. . .” He skipped a breath for that distraught call.
Why was he so feverish? He felt sweat gathering on his back and it horribly reminded him of blood. Was he going to die? He couldn't tell who had him in their clutches, and he didn't know anyone he could've possibly pissed off this badly. The figure above him was a dark phantom, and their face was concealed under a hood and mask.
Elliot didn't even know if they were human.
Voices and high scratchy noises attacked his ears, dragging him to his limit as everything reminded him of his regrets, doubts, and fears. And all it took was a bright bulging red eye glitching in the center of the hooded figure's face to unravel everything.
It was always watching.
The last bits of his strength were channeled together in a final attempt to break free, and as he felt even that die down against the other's overpowering force, Elliot's entire mind fell to the corruption of psychosis.
He gave a blood-curling scream that could rupture the eardrums of anyone in the vicinity- including his own. Delusions and hallucinations drowned him in an experience that was entirely of his own mental creation, customized with his personal torture, just for him.
His mercy came when complete unconsciousness finally claimed him.
___✙✙𖥸𓆩𓁺𓆪𖥸✙✙___
Elliot's body was in a blissful state of stasis, the torment from before had never happened; it never existed outside of his mind, and now it was crumbling from his memories, lost as a mere mirage. The only thing that survived was always the uneasiness stored in his body, a separate instinct from his abstract psyche. It should've been an obvious lesson by now, that the body always remembered. Cuts scarred up, skin reformed differently after blunt trauma, and an instinct was always there- an urge to avoid the same pain, manifested in physical withdrawal, aversion, and a heightened awareness. So when a figure loomed over the resting boy again, Elliot's eyes slowly opened on their own will.
“Hey gorgeous.” A familiar face hovered over his, with just the right amount of distance to keep their long bangs from brushing against him.
It took Elliot less than a minute to recognize them, with those crooked shades, the sweet talk despite Elliot's rough appearance, and of course, their suave grin.
“Chance!” Elliot wailed and really put his own body to the test when he lunged at them without warning. Everything in his nervous system flared up and had pain lacing his voice, but he continued to hold on to the other. “I thought you were gone! Like you disappeared on me too. . .”
“Ahahaha. . . C'mon Ells. . . It'd take more than that to bring me down.” There was something lacking in Chance's tone, but Elliot didn't find it odd considering what they both endured. They were probably just as tired as he was. In fact, it was more surprising to see them so composed and somewhat cheery.
He was about to bring it up, until a stabbing pain emerged from his arm and reminded him of his own condition.
“Oww! Ow, ow. . !”
“Woah, hey-” Chance gently steadied him and ran their hand over to hoist Elliot's arm up. “What's this?” They motioned at a bandage wrapped inside the crook of his arm.
“They. . . Must've done bloodwork on me?”
“I don't remember you getting hurt. . . How did you end up here?”
“Um, I think I might've hit my head. . .” Elliot froze, his eyes widening with guilt. “Wait. . . I couldn't save them. . . Chance, I tried, but I was too late- I'm so sorry. . .”
“Hey, it's okay. . .” Chance helped him maintain his balance. “I put too much pressure on you back there.”
“But Two Time-” Elliot cut himself off, feeling a sudden shift in the other's grip on him.
“. . .” They loosened their fingers after a moment of silence, sighing out as they forced a smile on. “Ells? You're lookin’ a little pale, and you're in recovery. Don't stress yourself out over things that aren't your fault, okay?”
“I can't help it- and I'm worried about you too! What happened with the culprit-”
“Shh, not so loud. . .”
“Sorry. . .”
Chance took a moment to look around the empty room, double checking when it wasn't necessary to do so. “I took care of it. . . Chased him off.”
While it was an absolute relief to hear Chance didn't get a body count, Elliot couldn't shake his disquietude over the killer still being out there. But he reminded himself that the most important thing was that Chance made it out okay- practically unscathed. Mentally? They didn't seem to be all here, but they were probably grieving the loss of Two Time, processing it in their own way. Elliot understood them, for he too put on a merry little smile around others, even when the stress of his work life got overwhelming.
What startled them both was the click of a door closing. Elliot jumped out of his ruminating while Chance tensed up as they made eye contact with the stranger entering the room. As soon as the pizza boy followed their eyes, his head throbbed faintly upon recognizing who it was.
Now in the brightness of the hospital lighting, the man stood with a less threatening aura. He was still concealed in his thick cloak with a mask underneath, but darkness wasn't clinging to his figure like it did in the mansion.
Chance shifted closer to Elliot, propping themselves by the edge of the bed with a tight smile. “Might I ask who you are?” They said it smoothly, but with the tension in the air, it was no more than a thinly-veiled warning.
They were protecting Elliot.
Or that's what it felt like. He already harbored some malaise over the newcomer. Did Chance manage to pick up on that?
The man quickly waved a hand once he sensed their apprehension and held up a paper bag with his other.
“That's. . .” Elliot's voice lifted in acknowledgement.
The stranger nodded earnestly and cautiously went to place it on the bed. He then instinctively drew his hands together and was about to sign something before it occurred to him that not everyone was familiar with his language. He dropped his hands, looked off to the side, and finally remembered to pull out a little card with the word ‘Taph’ on it.
“Taph. . ? Is that your name?” Elliot was the one actually responding. Did he remember the guy knocking him out? Maybe. . . It was a physical reminder in the form of a bruise, but he was surprisingly losing his animosity faster than Chance.
Taph nodded quickly and turned the card around. It simply read, ‘I'm sorry.’
“Oh, for. . .”
Putting away the card, he threw a punch at the air- which was horrible for Chance's reflexes- and bluntly acted out getting hit in the head.
“You did what to him?!” The gambler hissed in a low tone.
“Chance- it's okay. . . I don't. . . I honestly don't remember-”
“You gave him amnesia, that's what you did!”
Taph shook his head and bowed it shamefully, his fingers twitching with an urge to explain himself adequately.
Elliot loosely took Chance's hand with his arm that was less sore, keeping them from pulling something stupid. “It's okay. . . And he apologized. . . So it's water under the bridge? I don't think anyone was acting rationally in the moment. . . You-” He turned his attention to Taph. “You saw what happened, didn't you?”
Chance's posture suddenly dropped at that. Right. . . This would imply Taph had been there too.
The demolitionist wasn't afraid to answer truthfully, nodding in response.
“Were you the one who brought us here?”
Taph began to nod again before he quickly shook his head, pointing a finger specifically towards Elliot.
“Scared the shit outta me too. . .” Chance muttered. “I thought something happened to you.”
“Wait- wait!” The pizza boy stammered. “If you saw me with the body. . . Are you going to report me? Because- I- it's complicated to say, but I didn't kill anyone. . !”
“I can be his alibi.” His friend placed a steady hand on his shoulder. “Ti- the victim was already long dead before he got to the scene.”
Taph shook his head once more and made an easing motion with his hands, gesturing around the room and unintentionally signing a single word.
Elliot. . . Narrowed his eyes as he watched the fingers form characters, and from knowledge deep within his brain, somehow it slowly started to make sense.
“Safe.”
“We're safe here. . ?” He spoke hesitantly.
Taph gave a small bounce of excitement and started signing faster than light speed.
“Yo_ _now si_n lan__a_e?”
“Uhh. . . Kind of, I guess?”
“That ma_es me ha__y to hea_! And yes, yo_ a_e safe he_e, I have a f_iend who will make s__e yo_ don't get w_ongfully f_amed.”
For the most part, he got the message. Taph had an experienced way of communicating with general gestures that filled in for the missing letters Elliot couldn't recall.
“Oh thank god. . . Oh thank god, oh thank you.” He repeated and physically deflated with a heavy sigh.
“So.” Chance spoke up as their friend went out of commission. “That's gonna be dealt with? You'll pull a couple of strings to make sure Ells stays in the clear?”
Taph felt delightfully surprised when Chance also got the context, being used to a world full of people who wouldn't bother to learn an extra method of communication for those who couldn't use the standard. He gave them a thumbs up.
“Great, so it worked out after all, that's luck for ya.” The gambler snapped his fingers and mimed a shot with them. “I'm counting on the staff keeping him safe here, so I don't recommend trying anything else as it won't end well. . .” With their shades on, Taph would never know how much darker the warning was as their eyes fell over their own fingers still symbolizing a gun.
“Oh. . .” Elliot didn't raise his head from how it had fallen before, making it harder to hear the crestfallen whisper he uttered. “Is this goodbye. . ?”
He knew it made sense to wrap it up now, Chance had fulfilled his end of the bargain, still had someone hunting him down, and now had to handle the trauma of finding his friend's corpse. For someone who acted like they gave no fucks, they had a lot of things to deal with, and Elliot would just be another burden in their plate full of problems. He would be selfish to request their extended company, knowing they'd get wrapped up in the case file of his missing family.
“I have something I need to take care of real quick.” Chance could've left it at that, let Elliot find his footing in life after they had swerved him off track so hard. It's what he told himself he'd do. . . And when their little detour turned into a crime scene, it was the best thing to do. All Chance succeeded at was dragging other people into deeper shit, and Elliot was someone he knew would continue following them. He was making it obvious right now, how he didn't want them to go.
The kind thing to do would be to let him down gently, allow the boy to recover from a relationship that never started and find other genuinely good people for support. But Chance. . . Always went with the option that seemed nice. When did they ever give a concrete answer? It was always open-ended, because on the off chance he returned, he hadn't completely burned the bridge down.
“But- It doesn't have to be goodbye goodbye. . . I could drop by again later, see how you're holding up. If that's what you want-”
“Really?” It was guilt-inducing how fast Elliot's head moved up. “Are you sure you won't be too busy?”
“Ells, I can always make time for you.”
“Oh. . .” The boy reached up to cover the red gathering on his face. “I-i- I'm- yes!- I'd like it if you came back-”
Chance spared him the embarrassment by blocking him from Taph's view and moved to fully embrace him. Elliot gave a startled squeak that died down as his temperature broke a new record.
“I feel like I shouldn't be doing this when you just got bloodwork done.” The other teased him while doing absolutely nothing to back down. They instead reached past him to gently collect his hair and tie it up comfortably, adding to the blush on his face. “There, so it doesn't get tangled.”
“T-thank you. . .” Elliot managed out, never taking his eyes off them once. Chance's face was his entire view. All he could focus on was how their eyes gleamed an aureate shine through the shades up close, like pieces of gold in a murky river.
The two stayed in that momentary trance that fell between them, lost in a new world involving only themselves.
Meanwhile, Taph was just observing their behavior, specifically Chance now that he mentioned he had something to do. The demolitionist may get too paranoid at times, but it sharpened his instincts when it came to considering all the outcomes. At least with Dusekkar's advice, he was able to add reason in a process of elimination with his anxious thoughts. And right now, he accepted his subtle ick at the fact Chance was already doing something in the small time frame between the incident and now. His eyes blinked and darted to Elliot as he saw a sudden shift in his posture.
The pizza boy leaned forward. . . and suddenly reached downwards to grab the paper bag. The guy was fucking overthinking ways to repay Chance's kindness when the other had been leaning in too.
He missed their lips and held up the food. “Please, take these- you'll need them more than I do.”
“Uh- hUh- oh, for me? Seriously?” Chance stammered, holding his head as he appeared dazed.
“Yes, I'll be okay- I'm in a clinic. . . So if you could at least hold onto these when you go, I'll feel a lot better.”
“Alright, but you know it's bad business to give food away for free. Here's my payment~”
“Hm?-” Elliot was just about to reaffirm that it was a gift when Chance made their move and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Hh- h-huH HUH-” His face exploded with hues redder than the spiciest pizza sauce available, and if he was in a goofy ass anime, steam would be humorously pouring out of his ears. He placed a gentle hand over the spot, looked at Chance, and melted in his bed with a flustered expression.
“D-do you want your change back. . .” He muttered as he did a hard-reset back into factory mode.
The unintentionally witty comment paired with Elliot's reaction had Chance howling with laughter until he was painfully wheezing out air and struggling to hold himself upright.
It would be the last time he'd laugh out of genuine joy.
___ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡♡♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨( ˶꩜﹏꩜˶)___
A body roughly hit the barren surface of pure dirt and pebbles. After them, another thud followed as a person dropped down into an enclosed underground section.
Chance drew a long breath while he rolled back his shoulders with the insouciance of finishing a long day of work. Then he simply began to drag the dead weight to a corner in the deepest part of the carved out earth and propped them against a group of wooden crates. The place was a mystery to him; some old warzone with abandoned boxes of supplies and weapons, and a very very useful subsurface area! Yes, all that mattered was the privacy it provided, for he planned to spend a good couple of hours down there.
He flipped his coin for good luck- and maybe as a complex coping mechanism, a way to derive courage from the belief in luck itself; then he reloaded his gun with a single bullet and a satisfying click.
There was no turning back from this, but he'd be damned if he let this monster claim another one of his friends’ lives.
“Wake up,” Chance grumbled in a monotone. Their shoe thudded against the guy's skull- no response. They tried again, harder this time, but got the same result. Well, third time's the charm. Nope. Again. One more time. . . The other's faceless head started to stir, and only then did Chance notice a trickle of blood. “iTrapped. . . Can you hear me?”
The man below them pushed his ear towards their voice, disoriented to the point of obeying until the pain became apparent.
“My head. . .” He groaned and tried to pull his arm free from. . . What exactly was restraining it? He craned his neck to peer down his back. “What in the world. . .”
His arms were bound together by a rope filled with multiple knots. Someone either didn't know how to tie shit properly or rushed through it.
“Don't even try escaping this, you slippery fucking snake. Did you think I'd forget it? What you did to me?? And did you really think you could get away with killing Two Time?”
A gun was pointed to iTrapped's face, and he was still so sluggish that it took him a minute to react. Underreact.
“Is that a gun. . ?”
Was iTrapped not fucking scared of him? It pissed the hell out of Chance to feel undermined by this bastard when they had him at their mercy. Their strong emotions carried fragments of implicit memories, returning to them the hatred of a younger self they could no longer relate to.
Because they were a victim before.
A puppet to this psychopath's grand scheme, and eventually. . . Just trash to be discarded. iTrapped didn't even look back once. . . And that was his mistake.
So if he thought he could take control now, he was dead wrong.
Chance lowered the gun and grabbed a handful of blond hair to yank him to their eye level. “It's the only mercy you'll get from what I'm about to do to you. And if you want the easy way out, you better start talking.”
“OW ow- that hurts!! W-what do you want from me?”
The gambler twisted their fingers deeper between his strands and pulled. “You were never funny, so stop fuckin’ around with me. Why did you kill them?! Does it hurt to see me happy with other friends?”
“I didn't kill them!!”
“Liar!”
“NO!-” iTrapped screamed as pain flared up in his shoulder. Chance had specifically targeted his old bullet wound and struck it with the front of their flintlock. “I-i swear, I don't know how they died!”
“Alright. . .”
In what seemed like a small moment of relief, Chance wrenched their hand out of his hair and withdrew entirely to disappear behind him. Yet any hope that they might've regretted their actions or tone down the violence was destroyed as iTrapped heard the sound of creaking old wood.
Chance battled with the top of one of the crates, ripping it open with agitation once they got a painful splinter in their thumb, and hastily searched through its contents.
“Since it sounds like you need more. . . motivation to talk to me, I figured this might do the trick.” Their voice carried back to iTrapped's ears, a hollow tone despite the edge to their movements. “This place is pretty neat if you ask me, it has a lot of icebreakers. . .” Their words slurred into a demented chuckle as their upper body strength gave out.
A moment of silence passed and all Chance did was stand there, dropping their head limply. It showed through their catatonia that something was deeply wrong- and the heinous actions they were committing were a mere symptom. Not only were they uncharacteristically cruel, they mimicked the zombie-like state of an ant infected with a parasite. And in the same disjointed manner, their head raised like it was attached to a string. “But we can start with something simple.”
“You're insane!” The tied up man screamed when his tormentor showed him a combat knife, with their false smile and all. Not once did they budge at the insult though, they were dead serious, and it did encourage him to start spilling anything to appease them. “Okay, okay- I might've gone with someone else and I don't know what happened- but I l-left him with your- your- um- the other person!! And w-when I came back t-they were dead and he was gone!”
His reward was a rattling sound of staccato cackles shaking the gambler to their core as they struggled to stay balanced.
“You're such a coward! Pinning it on someone else now? Like I'd believe that!” All at once, their manic grin pulled into an enraged grimace as they tore through iTrapped's arm with the blade. Agony left his body through a scream with the intensity of an apocalyptic siren, and it was constantly cut apart in grating segments each time the knife struck him.
“They were cut by a sword~ You gave yourself away JUST LIKE THAT- No one else uses swords in this day and age!” Chance lost themselves in their rhythm, staggering every now and then when the knife got jammed in lacerated flesh.
The other couldn't form any coherent thought to give a response other than shrieks. His mind was bloated with feedback detailing the destruction of multiple nerves and tissue, and all he could do was feel it blur the essence of pain.
Oh. . . and he didn't feel anymore new damage. . . But it wasn't because his brain overrode it. iTrapped's eyes rolled over to see the knife hovering over his open wounds.
“I still want to figure you out before you. . .” Chance's head trembled, and even with those shades on, they couldn't hide the pain in their twisted scowl. “I mean, you read me like a-” They looked to their side, searching for the right phrase to complete their simile. Their hand twitched, trying to literally grasp intangible words, and it was eventually lost on them. “You knew everything about me. And I? Grew familiar with your mask. . . I talked to it, told my darkest secrets, laughed with it. . . I fell in love with that stupid mask. . .”
The only right answer to that was silence, and iTrapped scored full points.
“I really did think you'd be my future! I would've fucking tried for you! But you stabbed me and left me to die! I still have the fucking scar!” They ripped another scream out of the man when they proceeded to literally rip through his other arm ferociously, sending pieces of skin flying with a shower of blood. “And guess what?! I survived by sheer luck! No matter how hard you tried to bring me down and kill me, even you couldn't beat my luck! How does it feel?! To waste months of your life planning to kill someone invincible!”
It was at this point that iTrapped did something unexpected, but fitting for the psychopath. As another stab split open the wound on his shoulder, he choked out a noise closer to resembling mania. His cries gained a weird upbeat inflection, and right here, in the face of death, he was laughing.
iTrapped was laughing while Chance struggled to bring him down to the misery they felt.
The sound immediately ignited the gambler with insurmountable fury. They drove the knife down into his chest, carelessly spilling blood they meant to save in order to prolong the other's agony. iTrapped kept to his maniacal mood and shook with a cry of laughter, and Chance felt dissonance hit from being unable to see his expression.
“I should've known! You don't care, you NEVER cared! And now what- you think you can copy me?! DO YOU THINK YOU'LL GET OUT OF THIS ALIVE?! YOU WERE NEVER THE LUCKY ONE!” Chance shouted like they lost their mind as they slammed the knife down and aimed their flintlock. “Wanna bet right now?!”
“Ahahaha! Just kill me then!” The man shouted with a bounce of his head as if he tried throwing it back with glee, and that was all it took.
A loud gunshot rang in the large underground space, spilling out of the opening above them into the quiet night. Chance stood with their arm outstretched and locked, their chest heaved noticeably, and a thread of smoke billowed out of their gun. As for iTrapped? His body was crumpled over red crates, a result of the new bleeding hole in his head.
“. . .Looks like I win. . .” The statement tumbled out of the newly born murderer's lips with exhaustion, and yet they still tried to hold on to the delirium that came with killing the bane of their existence. One they just remembered too. . . Was it safe to say this may have happened too fast? Chance was still uncovering hints of interactions that held a bitter nostalgia now that they knew the truth. Still, the only real thing in those memories were the genuine feelings they held for their ex-best friend. iTrapped was fake as fuck, but he had been their shoulder to cry on, and the words he said were tailored to feel so genuine. . . He was there to see it all, Chance's ugly side, darkest moments, goals. . . Through it all, it turns out he was just looking for a stupid key, and when he found a metaphorical one to Chance's heart. . . It wasn't enough. That was the take away here, Chance had never meant anything to him.
So when Chance struck him down now, they were treating him purely like an enemy for killing Two Time. That was all there was to it. . . Chance had won. Their luck came through for them again.
“Damn.” A cold voice from behind made them spin around violently. “I didn't think you had it in you to do something like this. Color me impressed. . .” The actual prince of ice stepped into view like a demon manifesting from the shadows.
He had longer hair now. . . Tied up high to support the crown on his head, but it seemed he never tamed the loose strands that tainted his magnificence with subtle instability. The man had a fully updated look that threw Chance off the more they stared at him. His green and blue clothes meshed together with the help of an overlapping hue complementing his colder palette. Tiny embedded jewels hung around the top of his suit like frost, and added a refined touch of wealth.
He looked like a new person. . . But no amount of glamorized clothing could camouflage a dangerous visage sharp enough to cut a diamond with ease. It all cleared up to Chance, and the box over iTrapped's facial features disintegrated wholly. His expression was dead, marked by a sly smile and eyes that had frozen over a long time ago, but it still held an air of superiority. Everything came together to make up the face of a man his memory had refused to let him see.
Until now.